Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Wenqing Yan

Wenqing Yan, more famously known as Yuumei, is an artist who reached international fame through deviantArt. She lives in the United States, but lived in China for her childhood. Her art focuses on serious issues such as environmentalism, divorce, censorship and more. Her most popular works include Knite, an interactive comic, and 1000 words, a book.

Her landscapes are breathtakingly beautiful, with unusual colour schemes and a unique, soft atmosphere that enhances the emotiveness of her work. The body language here helps to give the characters definition and character even without the focus on them. The lighting and the reflections are spot on, and the transitions in the sky are romantic and soft.

This work is set, obviously, in China, as we can tell from the Chinese character on the wall and the lanterns and merchandise on the stall. Again, her body language allows for depth to be added - we can tell the boy at the front is relaxed and confident, the girl is delicate and mature, and the boy at the back is quite and aloof. Her shading and highlighting is gorgeous, using an unusual splodge like style, which enhances her soft style and helps her add a wider range and depth of colour. The items and props on this piece are all very well drawn and show great technical skill. The artists age is unknown, but she is quite young, making this art even more impressive.

This is an example of her more environmentalist work, featuring a birdwoman being poisoned by the oil pump. This is a very common topic for her, a lot of her work covers similar themes. Her anatomy is flawless and very human like, her hair flows naturally and shines naturally, the bird is drawn brilliantly and the oil pump is shaded beautifully (look at all the tones of blue, green and purple in the pipe!).

The dead fish aren't noticed at first, but are realised later on, added to the horror of the piece. It becomes apparent she is standing in oil, and the background appears to be a large factory causing a great deal of air pollution. Her skin is coloured very unusually, using a wide range of hues, but it fits beautifully with this work. The fish look shiny, too, which is nice.

Digital art is not all she does, oh no! This is one of her beautiful sculptures. I'm not one who likes sculptures, in fact, I hate them, but this piece is so beautiful, I've been admiring it for years. The creature is fox like and human like, with a long, unnatural neck and big ears. The fur has been defined very nicely, and the tail looks lovely and floppy. The character is covered in chinese characters. Yan stated that one of the characters is 'Qing' meaning emotion.

The colours are contrasting and rich, and the traditional mask the character is wearing is simply beautiful.